74 Rochester Experiences that Make Great Gifts

The benefits of sharing Rochester experiences as gifts extend far beyond personal happiness! I read an article a few years back about nontraditional gift-giving. Author Kimberly DeMucha Kalil shared that she decided to stop giving stuff and start giving experiences. “On Christmas morning,” she writes, “my kids opened a letter from Santa. In it, he explained that we’d be leaving on a trip that very day. There were no presents to unwrap, but there were no tears, either. My kids were too excited about the adventure ahead to think about what they didn’t get.”

According to Fast Company’s article, The Science Of Why You Should Spend Your Money On Experiences, Not Things “You can really like your material stuff. You can even think that part of your identity is connected to those things, but nonetheless they remain separate from you. In contrast, your experiences really are part of you. We are the sum total of our experiences.” Picture your home with less clutter, less to pick up and move around, less waste, less stress—less is truly more!

Pitch a tent in the yard and have a camp out. Stay up late and find constellations among the stars, or look for meteors during the summer Perseids.

On a clear Saturday night, visit the astronomy tower at the Strasenburgh Planetarium. Their telescopes let you see the rings of Saturn and the Orion Nebula, to name a few. You can become an amateur astronomer with help from ASRAS (Astronomy Section Rochester Academy of Science)

Plan your ROC-cation!

Take a week off from work and spend it exploring the Rochester area. Use a map to plot your day trips, plan what new restaurants to try each day, and car-ride activities if your day trip is more than an hour. Try planning your trip with your home as the center of a compass rose. What can you do if you head northeast one day, southwest the next, etc. Plan to alternate short-distance day trips with long-distance.

Now, plan how you’d like to present your gift!

Make a calendar with new Rochester experiences each month.

Write experiences on slips of paper and put them in jars. Give each person a jar from which they can draw random ideas throughout the year.

Hang envelopes from the tree, each containing a gift of togetherness like a “coupon” for a Saturday hike, a gift card to the movies, a museum membership, or a cooking class.

Create a memory book (or a blog!) of all of your Rochester experiences.

What Rochester experiences will you share this year?

If you’re gifting from out-of-town, most of these organizations have gift cards and memberships as well.

To quote from The Grinch: “It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas means a little bit more.”